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Kindergartner, First-Grader Found With Fake Guns At School

POSTED: 7:41 am EST February 16, 2006
UPDATED: 8:11 am EST February 16, 2006

An officer was called to an Orange County, Fla., school after officials found a kindergartner and a first-grader carrying fake guns that looked like real weapons, according to a Local 6 News report.

Sheriff's deputies said the young students were caught with a cap gun and a fake gun at Pine Hills Elementary School Wednesday.

Local 6 News reported that the principal found out about the guns but only after students may have spotted the guns.

A school resource officer confiscated the fake firearms, according to the report.

Officers noticed that the guns were not real, but the toys present a real danger, according to the report.

"If a law enforcement officer spotted one of the weapons, he could have taken it as a real gun," Orange County sheriff's spokeswoman Barbara Miller said.

Classmates said they are seeing more and more kids trying to change the appearance of the toy guns so that they look realistic, the report said.

"They have orange tips and they take them off," Pine Hills Elementary School student Joianne West said.

"Why do they do that?" Local 6 reporter Erik von Ancken said.

"To make them seem real," Joianne said.

Last month in Seminole County, a pellet gun looked so real to a SWAT team that deputies opened fire, killing an eighth-grader when he pointed the fake gun at them.

Both students will be reprimanded for the guns.

Thursday, the school resource office will make an announcement of the dangers of bringing the fake guns to school.

Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.